Find Us On

The Democratic Party’s wins in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections, and its modest successes in recent Congressional elections, have obscured a series of setbacks for the party in the states. As National Journal put it, the GOP “wiped the floor with Democrats” in the 2010 midterm elections, setting a record in the modern era by picking up 680 seats in state legislatures. The next-largest harvest of legislative seats was the Democrats’ 628-seat gain in the Watergate-dominated election of 1974. The 2010 landslide gave the GOP the upper hand in the subsequent Congressional redistricting process, allowing Republicans to tilt the playing field in their favor and shape U.S. elections for years to come. In the meantime, conservatives have used friendly, GOP-dominated state legislatures to ram their agenda through legislatures—in “red” states and even some states that lean “blue”—on a range of issues: imposing harsh voter restrictions in North Carolina, for example, and passing dramatic anti-labor legislation in Michigan.

The roots of this debacle go far deeper than one or two election cycles and cannot be explained by the normal ebb and flow in electoral fortunes of the two major parties. The seeds were actually sown in the late 1980s, when strategists in the conservative movement came to an important realization.

A Christian group has obtained more than 33,000 signatures for a petition demanding that CNN cease putting Family Research Council chief Tony Perkins on its airwaves with his “anti-gay” views.

The group, Faithful America, describes itself as a “community dedicated to reclaiming Christianity from the religious right,” refusing to “sit by quietly while Jesus’ message of good news is hijacked to serve a hateful political agenda.” As such, one of their causes is to put an end to the cable news outlet’s use of Perkins as a “voice for Christian causes.”

“Even as church bells rang out to celebrate a victory for equality,” the petition reads, “CNN once again turned to a hate-group leader to speak on behalf of America’s Christians. Tony Perkins doesn’t speak for us, and CNN needs to stop giving him a platform to spread anti-gay hate.”

Chip Berlet of Talk To Action delves intelligently into the media coverage of the Boston bombing case:

Much media coverage of the worldview and motivation of the suspects in the Boston bombing case--one now dead--was sensational and provocative. Very little of it, however, relied on experts who use contemporary rather than outdated and discredited social science. Discussions of the possible role of religion were often stilted or stifled.

Contemporary sociological theory contends that:

Most people who join social movements, political movements, or religious movements are not mentally ill or stupid. They have adopted an ideology and constructed an identity that in their view justifies their actions--whether these actions are deemed constructive or destructive by society.

The vast majority of movement activists never engage in violence.

There is no correlation linking religious piety with violence.

The radicalization process itself does not cause violence.

Dissent, movement activism, and non-violent civil disobedience are part of the democratic process in civil society.

So we asked a variety of respected academics, researchers, and analysts of movements and political violence to craft an answer to this question: "As a person with expertise, what would you tell a reporter who wanted to know what she or he needs to know to craft a better, more informed story about the Boston bombings as details emerge?"

Journalist and historian Susan Jacoby talks with Bill about the role secularism and intellectual curiosity have played throughout America’s history, a topic explored in her new book, The Great Agnostic: Robert Ingersoll and American Freethought.

“I’m sure there are plenty of atheists and various kinds of unorthodox religious people in Congress, but they don’t talk about it,” Jacoby tells Bill. “I think that either proclaiming allegiance to a religion or shutting up about it is still an absolute requirement.”

American Family Association spokesman Bryan Fischer appeared on CNN today and told host Carol Costello that the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “Mix It Up at Lunch Day” program, which the AFA is protesting, is “toxic” to the “moral health” of students, much like “poisoned Halloween candy” injected with cyanide.

After Fischer did his normal routine of arguing that Hitler was gay and that the Stormtroopers were largely comprised of gay members while making wild claims about the supposed dangers of homosexuality, Costello abruptly ended the interview, adding, “thanks for sharing your views, I guess.”